Latest news with #ArthurC.Clarke
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive: Reducto, AI document parsing startup, raises $24.5 million Series A led by Benchmark
I've long been fond of Arthur C. Clarke's famous third law: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' In Reducto's case, the founders took that principle literally when they settled on a name for the company. "We had this notion of wanting to build magical tools for developers,' said Adit Abraham, cofounder and CEO of Reducto. 'We had a list of names that were magic-adjacent. Reducto was one of them, and we picked it. Weirdly, it works with what we do, but it wasn't at all intentional." The name Reducto is derived from a Harry Potter incantation, for a spell that blasts objects into smaller fragments, or even dust. And that's a version of what Reducto does—the startup specializes in document ingestion, taking massive, complex documents and parsing them accurately. "The main reason why people end up using us is for accuracy,' Abraham told Fortune. 'We do a multi-pass approach to not just take out the outputs, but also find errors." Reducto, founded in 2023, recently raised a $24.5 million Series A, led by Benchmark, Fortune can exclusively report. First Round Capital, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator, all existing investors, participated in the round, which brought the company's total capital raised to nearly $33 million. (Reducto's $8.4 million seed round, led by First Round, was in October 2024.) Liz Wessel, partner at First Round, said that the market for Reducto is broad and growing fast: 'Industries like finance, healthcare, tech, and legal consistently face challenges converting complex documents into accurate inputs for LLMs,' she said via email. It's the wide variety of use cases that's key to the company's future. The startup's customers include Airtable, Scale, and an undisclosed Fortune 10 company. 'For large Fortune 500 companies, most of their accounting and finance processes are still done with paper—paper checks, paper confirmations, invoices,' said Benchmark general partner Chetan Puttagunta via email. 'The workflow around this can't be digitized, can't be AI-enabled until the underlying documents are processed accurately for LLMs.' And for AI startups serving enterprises, Puttagunta added, 'their customers are demanding that they be able to meet them where they are today—which means they have to be able to process documents intelligently.' Vanta, an AI compliance unicorn, has been using Reducto to power a number of customer experiences. The product is accurate and sticky, said Ignacio Andreu, Vanta senior manager of engineering, AI, via email: 'Based on our evaluations, alternatives like Gemini models, while potentially cheaper, don't yet match Reducto's accuracy,' he told Fortune. Abraham and his Reducto cofounder Raunak Chowdhuri met as students at MIT, and cut their teeth in AI spending time at Google and Nvidia, respectively. They've also leveraged their experience with computer vision in building Reducto, building tech that has the ability to understand handwriting, checkboxes, and other subtle markings. In some sense, Abraham says, the models are able to 'see' documents the way a human might, and is an indication of where we're headed overall. 'For my era of tech people, this is by far the most transformative period that has ever existed,' said Abraham. 'We're not far off from having intelligent systems—or agents, whatever you want to call it—reasoning on every important process, from doctor's office intake, to your financial records, insurance claims, all of it.' In short, a step towards small, everyday magic. See you Monday, Allie GarfinkleX: @agarfinksEmail: a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here. Nina Ajemian curated the deals section of today's newsletter. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Don't Think Aliens Are Real? These 7 Reasons Might Change Your Mind
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Are aliens real? We don't know for sure, but we want to believe. Outer space is a vast expanse that we have so much more to learn about, which is why it's hard to flat-out deny the possibility that other intelligent lifeforms exist. If life can exist—and persist—in seclusion, and in some of the harshest conditions on Earth (just look at tardigrades), it's likely that other interplanetary lifeforms have evolved and acclimated to conditions in space, too. As the renowned science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said, 'Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.' Several discoveries and theories from some of the greatest minds in science point to the likelihood that there's something beyond us in the universe, so there's a pretty decent chance we have neighbors somewhere in the ether. It's time to consider the evidence—here are seven solid reasons for believing aliens are among November 14, 2004, a training mission near San Diego became one that Commander David Fravor will never forget—and remains one he still can't explain. Fravor recalls seeing a Tic Tac-shaped object that moved much faster than the capability of any known weaponry that currently exists. 'We're flying brand new Super Hornets. It was an air defense exercise—two good guys against two bad guys,' Fravor said in a History Channel video interview. Everything seemed normal until the USS Princeton called upon Fravor and company for a real-world task. Changing course, it wasn't long before Fravor and the other pilots saw something strange: what appeared to be a sunken plane or submerging submarine moving erratically right under the water's surface. 'It's white, it has no wings, it has no rotors, I go 'holy, what is that?''' Fravor said. The UFO had no windows, and it's reported that infrared monitors failed to pick up on any exhaust fumes. Fravor says it wasn't long before his curiosity got the best of him, and he decided to get a closer look. As Fravor began descending toward the water, the craft surfaced, rapidly ascended, and began mirroring Fravor's flight pattern. Then, in an instant, it zipped past the nose of Fravor's jet and disappeared. When Fravor and the other pilots got back to the USS Nimitz, they shared their experiences with the rest of the crew. Shortly afterward, another pilot took off in search of the UFO—and succeeded. This pilot managed to get a lock on the Tic Tac, which happens to be the footage seen here. The Navy has officially released the footage (after it had originally been leaked), but says the public was never supposed to see it in the first place. See the original post on YoutubeIn November 1944, several members of the U.S. Air Force saw what would come to be known as 'Foo Fighters,' a name borrowed from the 'Smokey Stover' comic strip. The Foo Fighters were described as a type of mysterious aircraft that glowed red and could zip and turn through the skies with incredible ease. Lt. Fred Ringwald, who happened to be a passenger in a night fighter that was flying over the Rhine Valley, was the first to see the lights. Airmen reported seeing between eight and ten of the aircraft lined up in a row. Concerned that they might be enemy aircraft, the group checked with the ground radar team, who hadn't registered any odd activity. One of the pilots turned his aircraft around in preparation for a fight, only to find the lights had vanished as quickly as they appeared. The sightings didn't stop there, though. In mid-December 1944, a different pilot saw what was described as a display of flashing red and green lights that created a T-formation, which also disappeared as quickly as they came. Several more sightings ensued, and although people tried to come up with explanations for them—the airmen were suffering from 'combat fatigue,' the lights were a result of some kind of weird weather phenomena, they came from some new, groundbreaking Nazi technology—they still remain a mystery. See the original post on YoutubeAvi Loeb, an impressively credentialed scientist who taught at Harvard and chaired the university's Astronomy Department, has put forth an interesting, but seemingly far-fetched, hypothesis: the asteroid Oumuamua is actually space debris from an alien structure or a defunct alien spacecraft. Coming from anyone else, this might seem crazy. But again, Loeb knows a thing or two about the machinations of space. While truthers are soaking up the Oumuamua theory, however, Loeb's colleagues are highly disappointed and upset that he's posited what they're calling an 'insult [to] honest scientific inquiry.' A March 2021 study by Arizona State University astrophysicists posits that the object is a nitrogen iceberg broken off from a Pluto-like planet in a distant star system. In part, it would explain how reflective the object is. Loeb countered that the chunk would have had to originate on a planet with an unrealistically high density. So the jury's still out on this mysterious chunk of space March 21, 2022, NASA confirmed the number of exoplanets is over 5,000, and we can expect that figure to only grow as we improve technology that's able to probe the nether regions of space. This means there are thousands of known planets that haven't been explored at length and several more awaiting discovery that could be comprised of environments with the ability to sustain life. Who's to say one (or multiple) exoplanets aren't already home to intelligent extraterrestrial beings? See the original post on YoutubeIn 2007, the Department of Defense (DoD) created a program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) to study 'space-related phenomena that could not be easily explained, usually involving the appearance of high-speed, unidentified aircraft,' per New York Magazine's Intelligencer. The covert program was headed by military intelligence official Luis Elizondo, who sought to investigate reports of UFO encounters. A decade later, Elizondo quit working at the Pentagon and confirmed AATIP's existence to the New York Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute was founded by Carl Sagan and Jill Tarter, two astronomers who believe there's more to interplanetary life than us. SETI's mission is 'to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe and the evolution of intelligence.' The Institute works with NASA and the National Science Foundation as a research contractor to pool resources and explore the possibility of intelligent life on other planets. Aside from optical and radio wave signals, SETI uses a laser detection system to look for signs of alien technology. Yep, an entire scientific organization that seeks to find other intelligent life in the universe actually exists. You Might Also Like 30 Anti-Aging Foods for Women That'll Keep You Feeling Young A Definitive Ranking of Popular Potato Chip Brands
Arab News
06-02-2025
- Science
- Arab News
Don't be a Luddite, embrace artificial intelligence
The 20th-century British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. Clarke spent much of his life foretelling, with unerring accuracy, the nature of the world in which we now live. In 1945, for example, he proposed a system of satellites in geostationary orbits ringing the Earth, upon which we now rely for communication and navigation. In 1964, he suggested that the workers of the future 'will not commute ... they will communicate.' Sound familiar? And again in 1964, Clarke predicted that, in the world of the future, 'the most intelligent inhabitants ... won't be men or monkeys, they'll be machines, the remote descendants of today's computers. Now, the present-day electronic brains are complete morons. But this will not be true in another generation. They will start to think, and eventually they will completely outthink their makers.' It is the accuracy of that last prediction — what Clarke called 'machine learning,' now usually referred to as artificial intelligence — that most exercises those who feel threatened by it. It would be fair to say that AI, or more accurately the exponential speed at which it is acquiring new and innovative capabilities, is not being universally welcomed. There are two main areas of concern, the first of which may be summarized as: 'AI will eventually kill us all.' This may seem far-fetched, but the thought process that leads to the doomsday conclusion is not without logic. Broadly, it is that a superior intelligence must eventually reach the inevitable conclusion that humanity is an inferior species, destroying the planet on which it relies for its very existence, and should therefore be eliminated for the protection of everything else. Elon Musk worked this out a long time ago. Why do you think he wants to go to Mars? Fortunately, humanity is not reliant on Musk for its survival: for that we must thank another great exponent of the science fiction genre, Isaac Asimov. In 1942, he formulated the Three Laws of Robotics, which broadly regulate the relationship between us and machines, and in 1986 he added another law to precede the first three. It states: 'A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.' Asimov's laws apply to fictional machines, of course, but they still influence the ethics that underpin the creation and programming of all artificial intelligence. So, on the whole, I think we are safe. AI, or more accurately the exponential speed at which it is acquiring new and innovative capabilities, is not being universally welcomed The second area of concern may be broadly summarized as: 'AI is coming for all our jobs.' While this one may have more traction, it is not a new fear and it predates AI by centuries. It is not difficult to imagine the inventor of the wheel, showing off his creation but being greeted with skepticism by his Neolithic friends: 'No good will come of this. Our legs will become redundant, and those of future generations will wither away and die. This contraption must be destroyed.' Before the first Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, most people in Europe and North America lived in agrarian communities and worked by hand. The advent of the water mill and the steam engine threw many out of work, as traditional crafts such as spinning and weaving cotton became redundant. However, jobs that had not previously existed were created for boiler makers, ironsmiths and mechanics. It happened again in the late 19th century, when steam power was superseded by electricity and steam mechanics retrained to become electricians. And again in the 1980s, with the advent of the computer age and the end of repetitive manual tasks, but the creation of new jobs for hardware and software engineers. Will AI have the same net beneficial effect? There is evidence that it already is. In the UK last week, health chiefs began screening 700,000 women for signs of breast cancer, using AI that can detect changes in breast tissue in a mammogram that even an expert radiologist would miss. In addition, the technology allows screening with only one human specialist instead of the usual two, releasing hundreds of radiologists for other vital work. This AI will save lives. However, when one door opens, another closes. Also last week, the Authors Guild, the US body that represents writers, created a logo for books to show readers that a work 'emanates from human intellect' and not from artificial intelligence. Authors argue that AI work has no merit, since it merely copies words and phrases that have already been used by another writer You can understand their angst. Large language models, the version of AI that is the authors' target, create the databases from which they produce content by scraping online sources for every word ever published, mostly without the formality of bothering to pay the original author. Many journalists have the same complaint. Some major media outlets — including the Associated Press, Axel Springer, the Financial Times, News Corp and The Atlantic — have reached licensing agreements with AI creators. Others, notably The New York Times, have gone down the lawsuit route for breach of copyright. Perhaps, especially for authors, this is a can of worms best left unopened. It used to be said that a monkey sitting at a keyboard typing at random for an infinite amount of time would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Mathematicians dispute this, but there is no disputing that AI has made it more likely. For example, if you were to ask a large language model such as ChatGPT to write a 27,000-word story in the style of Ernest Hemingway about an elderly fisherman and his long struggle to catch a giant marlin, it would almost certainly come up with 'The Old Man and the Sea' — especially since the original is already in the AI's database. Authors argue that the AI work would have no merit, since it merely copies words and phrases that have already been used by another writer. But does that argument not apply to every new literary work? With the exception of Shakespeare, who coined about 1,700 written neologisms — from 'accommodation' to 'suspicious' — among a total of about 20,000 words in his plays and poems, almost every writer uses words and phrases that have been used by others before them: any literary or artistic merit derives from how a writer deploys those words and phrases. But if a book needs a special logo to distinguish a human author from an AI, what is the point in making the distinction? In England in the early 19th century, gangs of men called Luddites — after Ned Ludd, a weaver who lost his traditional manual job to mechanization — roamed towns and cities smashing the new machines in the textile industry that they believed were depriving them of employment. They initially enjoyed widespread support, but this melted away when it became clear that the age of steam was creating more jobs than it destroyed. Let that be a lesson for the anti-AI Luddites of the 21st century. - Ross Anderson is associate editor of Arab News.
